Author: smithaw50

I live in NJ. Concentrating now on a getting a full time writing career started. Glad you could be with me on the journey. Ready? Here we go...

A Song of Starshine

In this lonely field I hear her as the last of twilight falls.

In the chill air of the meadow sounds the loveliest of calls.

No, I don’t know where it comes from, I just hear the lady sing,

and the starlight starts to shine above the ancient meadow’s ring.

The first notes sound the loneliest, and far afield, and sad,

but when the star fire blazes, there’s a cheerful shift to glad.

No moon tonight? No matter.

See? The stars shine just the same.

And one day I hope to see her,

and to learn her ancient name.

For now though, let the wolves be calm

throughout the wheeling night.

I loathe to use my staff or blade,

or stitch the deep-fanged bite.

My smooth-stoned seat’s beneath me

as the song fades in the trees.

And yet no sound of fleeing feet.

She makes sure no one sees.

See how the stars are shining bright

for comfort, guidance, dreams,

and wishes stored for children, lovers,

silencing the screams

that plague us in the night time hours.

Sometimes they are mine.

I wish to never hear the end

of singing stars to shine.

Love’s Last Pyre

And in the ever-growing distance,

the last husk of love lays

beneath

a glaze of frost.

The fire burned long, but slow.

In time, it smoldered, with ribbons of fire

still lacing the entrails,

still bright against the night sky.

The fragrance turned to stench,

but the winds of autumn cleared the air.

In time, I stopped turning back to look.

In time, I stopped searching.

In time, I became the husk,

dried, imperfect, indifferent to

the pending blade of harvest.

But it’s quiet here, and sometimes

loneliness sits next to me,

and sings her little songs of

how nice it could be.

But I’m tired now, and

the sound of another voice

in my space would prove

too intrusive, too expectant,

and redistribute long set boundaries,

or rebuild long standing walls.

I’ll let the silence reign, and the

solitude ring.

And other times, I wonder

if there are any more

embers

left beneath the pyre,

protected

from the

frost.

is any ember left in the pyre,

protected

from the

frost.

A Symphony of Stars

A Symphony of Stars

They say space has no sound.

How arrogant, since space is closed to us,

and there are ranges of hearing.

Space makes its own music,

and perhaps if we could hear and analyze it,

we would find a way to weaponize that too, as

it was back in the days we loved to destroy our lands

and each other for the brief, wanton joy that seizing coveted things

gives our feeble souls.

No.

It’s best we contain it within our hearing, and

play the music of the heart instead.

The spheres will write their harmonies,

and the cosmos their rhapsodies swelling with

the divine grandeur of all the gods that ever occupied the heavens.

And let the stars reflect on the ebon wood of the grand piano,

and twinkle as we play their lullaby for

the very first time.

Roses of Wisdom and Regret

And at the end,

and in his solitude,

he held the last one in

gnarled old hands.

His dues long paid,

his sadness long lived.

One rose,

red as blood,

bright as anger.

The others

by his side?

Useless, pointless,

unshared wisdom,

not even given the option

to go unheeded.

The clouds gathered overhead,

and within his mind,

and shrouded his heart.

He waited for the falling rain,

accepting his fate.

He waited for the falling rain

to drown the roses,

dissolve the regret,

and forever

seal the silent scream of wisdom

inside.

Bare Shelter

Alone

on the platform

she stood.

No luggage

No baggage

Nobody

running to someplace.

The wind found her, and passed her by.

The rain, so close,

like tears and dear departed,

never touched her.

The shelter was bare,

and no light would soon come,

but on that lonely night

her heart

so full, so restless, so free

would not let her stay.

The Ashes of Spring

The decades pass,

the seasons change.

I pass beneath the trees,

stripped bare at the moment,

the bark and branches at final shade

of a deathly brown,

with whatever creatures burrow inside.

It’s of a piece,

and I’m at peace, despite the wars I fought.

I did my part, carried my weight, rallied my

spiritual troops

in the cold and dark, getting up to

push back against setback.

But the ashes of spring have blown away

on the breezes, the blizzards, the rainstorms.

They’ve dissolved and run into the soil from

dew, and mist, and fog.

And every now and then,

my blood.

I’m tired now.

But there’s no one else here,

and no one is coming

even to say hello, much less rescue me.

The ashes of spring make no sound

beneath my feet, and

brown, bare branches have no nascent

scent of new spring blooms.

There’s only the tail end of winter now,

hanging on with claws just inside the door.

I have no choice but to be patient.

I have no choice but to go on.

The Skipped Line

Have you ever wondered if the skipped lines in your notebooks were angry or sad that they weren’t used? This is what happens when you overthink….

They remain the same when the coffee’s cold, or when the

dawn bleeds color on the black night vigils of our studies, plans,

dreams, and goals.

If we could but sort through the

mounds and mountains of we’ve made of them,

man’s fathomable mind would know to explore them

and why they make us who we are, and how we think.

The unused line is passed over, left blank and wanting.

We see nothing, and nothing seems to change.

The line has nothing to show for its existence,

or so it believes.

Does it despair, perhaps ignoring a truer, higher purpose?

What it does not know is that it provides

a delineation and organization

of thought.

It is, in and of itself, a break in the narrative.

It whispers to the brain to retain all the information gathered,

then build on it, or depart from it to explore

a new realm of information, imagination,

the character of your story’s character.

If only we could tell the unused line

it isn’t empty at all.

That Time They Called Us ‘Nightskins’

Man, the hardcore nerds came at us with that word,

thinking it was an insult,

meaning it as a slur

When we embraced it, 

they were caught off guard.

When we thought it was cool, dope, or

(fill in your generation’s vernacular here)

it died on their lips because:

Number 1: they didn’t expect it.

Number 2: they felt stupid.

Number 3: they did not understand 

what we do about our ancestors:

It was at night they planned to leave,

and ran, and ran, and ran, and died

for their freedom

It was at night they sang the music to

to strengthen them for the next day’s labors and trials.

It was at night they made the babies for massa, 

(or by massa) and took no comfort, 

crying out for the days that brought

the grief of their sale and separation,

the gratitude for family that stayed,

for rare moments that brought peace of mind and solitude,

for vigorous health and hard earned joy

All in the middle of the madness they faced 

on this hostile cotton colored colony hellbent

on keeping and making the concept of ‘us and them’ viable,

while allegedly following a God they claim says ‘All.’

But here, I’ll always be ‘them,’ no matter what I do.

We don’t need you, your presence, approval, or permission.

We are the NightSkins, and you’ll never be that 

cool, dope, or (fill in your generation’s vernacular here).

The Skin of My Land

The skin of my land is alive with

the colors

of soils of the springtime

and amber of skies.

The ambers of dawn in a crystal blue heaven,

the amber of embers when bright sunlight dies.

The skin of my land is the color of wheat grass

that dances in winds that make soft summer sighs.

The skin of my land is the red of the clay that the summer storm

makes when we say our goodbyes.

The skin of my land is the

floor of the ocean,

the whitest of clouds,

and the blackest of nights.

The skin of my land is a melanin melody.

Blessed the beholders of such divine sights.

Sun Child

Come outside, my baby.

Come out, little one.

This one I’ll call, ‘Daughter.’

This one I’ll call, ‘Son.’

The joy and the giggles,

the sadness and silence.

Too soon come the questions

unanswered by science.

Grow, beautiful flower!

Probe deeper, young root!

High knowledge dwells not

in the low hanging fruit.

Farewell, precious princess.

Goodbye, noble prince.

You’ll find me still sitting here.

Been ever since

you sailed ‘cross the waters,

flew ’way in the sky.

And now comes the sunset

for Mother and I.

Sun Children, they’ll hate you,

and you won’t know why.

Your light is too much for them.

Try not to die.